Archive for the ‘Writing/Publishing’ Category
An apt warning for a blogger
I cracked open a fortune cookie with a family group after dinner. My loved ones got warm, inspiring messages such as my son’s: ‘You will be successful in business and society’. Nice. I got this one: “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.” By coincidence, I had already drafted a longish blog post which detailed […]
David Farrier’s unsettling new documentary ‘Mister Organ’ – a film to watch through your fingers
In this age of entitled white men behaving badly, it’s common to hear the term “malignant narcissist” Anyone who’s had the misfortune to be sucked into the orbit or one of these miscreants, (let alone been obliged to, say, sue one for copyright infringement) eventually learns that the ONLY ‘exit strategy’ is to completely disengage […]
Plagiarism, copyright infringement. Potato, potahto.
I’ve had skin in this game in the past, and reason to think about it recently in relation to the actions of local (New Zealand) lobbyists The Maxim Institute* (see Unlikely online bully, Liam Hehir). So a recent discussion caught my eye. This strikes me as a good working definition: Defining plagiarism is trickier than […]
Cameron Slater is a liar. We already knew that, but it’s actually worse.
The just-released book Whale Oil, by Margie Thomson, tells the ghastly true story of a nasty, protracted online smear campaign. The dirty work was carried out by discredited dirty politics/dirty PR attack website owner Cameron Slater. But don’t misunderstand: Slater (long exposed as a recidivist liar) didn’t himself have any grievance against the target, Matthew […]
In the news, 1984. Some photographs.
My (endless?) decluttering continues, and with it, blasts from the past rise to the surface. During 1984, before I trained as a journalist, I set out to create a portfolio of photos of people who interested me – who were ‘In the news’ at the time. As a starting point, I approached figures I’d heard interviewed […]
Insulting people in print
Perhaps contrary to appearances, I endeavour to keep my criticism of people in the spotlight here on topic, and confined to a recounting of facts (to the best of my knowledge) and then express my opinions and conclusions. I don’t set out to ‘destroy’ people but rather, to give them some feedback. And occasionally express […]
What a photo of Patrick Gower!
Wow. Great shot. Talk about moody. Source: Newshub Features on Twitter. I’ve recently been thinking (again) about how media organizations harvest people-in-the-news’s social media profiles – often without permission and often murky about attribution – Source: “supplied” or “Facebook”. I hope I don’t sound too much like a hypocrite because I do use pix “published” on […]
Copy editor slacking on the job
Nice to have some assistance with this latest book project. But look at her slacking on the job. It’s hard to get good help these days.
The escape of exnzpat, Part 32
Obligations and choice It took Mia ten minutes to make her way to the three blue silos and coming up to them she looked for another pattern to take her onward to safety. A stabbing pain had formed in her arms and chest, but she knew she could not yet rest, and so she […]
The escape of exnzpat, Part 31
Strange New Worlds Mia sat. She waited for a sign but no sign came. She heard only the occasional distant, angry honking of cars in the gathered mêlée somewhere ahead of her. Her eyes dropped as if she were about to cry, and she called to her sister in the Shadow Lands for guidance. […]
The escape of exnzpat, Part 30
Big trouble under the shadow of the Tower The tower loomed ahead in the dark like an ancient, druid obelisk. It was a lonely thing, and in the fading light it took on the color of desolate gray; it was as hoary and as ugly as a pile of wetted ash. There was power […]
The escape of exnzpat, Part 29
Bartholomew Leading A broken rib is no big deal. Sure, it hurts like Hell, but three or more broken ribs hurt worse and, snapped and broken and freely moving under the weight and pressure of a 280lb man can be unpleasantly deadly. The man in my body struggled madly, and Jerry, angry and frightened […]
The escape of exnzpat, Part 28
The Ghost of things to come I went up the tree and, taking one last look across the pallid, soup-bowl horizon of Wormwood, I saw it as dismal. Its flatness and smell of rotting vegetation from the vast swamp below seemed somehow now appalling to me after the glory of the hive mound. I […]
The escape of exnzpat, Part 27
Lester The Magus on the couch remained catatonic, lost to the past and to her charges in Wormwood and too, her sister in the Shadow Lands. Lester on the bed, almost dead, and we: Maxwell, Lilith, Becky, the Chaldean (for that was his race), and I walked out from under the living umbrella of the […]
